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Family name origins & meanings
- Italian : nickname from a diminutive of the southern Italian dialect term cifaro, cifero ‘devil’, ‘demon’ (a reduced form of the personal name ascribed to the fallen angel, Latin Lucifer ‘bearer of light’, from lux, genitive lucis, light + ferre ‘to bear’). The first syllable was lost because it was understood as the regional form lu of the definite article.